Power Steering Mess, and a Life and Death Advice

[NTR1984]

Hello everyone thanks in advance for any advice on this issue.

I kept putting off adding some power steering fluid to my 2002 Sierra (yeah I know). So anyway it was getting pretty bad (making lots of noise etc), but as soon as I was turning around to finally go get some fluid at a store that I had just passed and add it, the power steering went totally out!! And what fluid I did have left was all over the concrete, and it started smoking. (due I suppose to the fluid hitting parts of the hot engine)

I checked it out and could not really determine where all the fluid was coming from, I did not see any obvious problems with the connections or anything.

So I have two questions for all you Sierra experts and enthusiasts.

1.) Does this sound like a power steering pump failure to you? If not what else could it be?

2.) I want to know if the gearbox in my model of truck is the kind that is independently lubricated, because I need to drive my truck about 45 minutes from here in order to work on it, and I have been in a situation before where the gearbox was lubricated by the power steering pump, and after driving it for a good while with no power steering fluid the steering locked up, and I dont want to go through that again.

Thanks again!

 

[mtntruckin]

Sounds just like what happened to my old truck. Leaking power steering reservoir + ignoring the problem for a while = bigger problems. did you check your power steering reservoir for cracks or small holes? Mine drained from a huge crack running along the bottom of the reservoir. I called up my mech, he said I should be fine driving the rest of the 80 mile trip I was on with no power steering, but to keep a fire extinguisher handy just in case the dry pump overheated. In my case, the pump just shut down, and I was able to drive back and replace the reservoir, refill, no lasting problems. However, this was just my little incident, so I would definitely call a shop or two for their opinion before you drive it anywhere. you could have lost that fluid anywhere along the power steering system, so the first move is finding out for sure where that fluid blew out from.